Dial File -- Steve Bornfeld: Tiptoe through the topics

Opinions? A dime a dozen.

Critics' opinions? Marked down to 6 cents -- but today only, read this column and get an additional 2 cents off! Can you believe the incredible savings?

1: The Screen Actors Guild has revealed in a new survey that over-40 actors and actresses are in seriously short supply on television -- or, to be blunt: SAG wants more, well, sag amid all that soft, supple flesh with which the networks are flush. Time to retool some of TV's teen hits for us gravitationally-disadvantaged old dogs. Let's start with "Dawson's Creak."

2: "Hard Copy" goes soft: It's finally been canceled. If we're lucky, maybe we'll get the SHOCKING, EXCLUSIVE story of its demise on "Inside Edition."

3: TV's pool of shallowness reaches new depths with new "Late Late Show" host Craig Kilborn, the Supreme Frat Brat/Smirk Jerk who, during his brief tenure, has shattered the network record for checking one's hair in the monitor. He must have cracked the mirror in his dressing room, dooming America to seven years of bad shows.

4: UPN is considering a fall series about hip-hoppers titled "Shasta McNasty." Whatever happened to the more dignified golden age of television, when we gathered around the electronic campfire as a family to enjoy "Homeboys in Outer Space"?

5: A new Charlie Sheen cop-com called "Sugar Hill" might make the network's fall roll call. Rumor has it that Sheen is pushing for numerous cross-over appearances in a spinoff series he hopes to personally supervise, "Heidi's Angels." He's reportedly worked closely with the cast in the past.

6: Roseanne's talk show was renewed. Howie Mandel's wasn't. Who cares -- unless they get caught in a sex quadrangle with Donny & Marie and they all slug it out on "Springer," during which the cherished Osmond teeth are smashed in, triggering enormous pain and suffering throughout America and prompting a class action lawsuit featuring the surprise testimony of Jenny Jones?

7: On May 20 plant yourselves at ABC as implant-less Pamela Anderson co-hosts "The 1999 World Music Awards." No word on whether Wonder Bra is a sponsor.

8: With Ben Bratt's announced departure "Law & Order" loses yet another cast member. But to paraphrase Steve Allen's classic comment about hosting the "Tonight Show," the series is so sound that you could hire a chimpanzee who dates Julia Roberts to do it.

9: "Home Improvement," "Mad About You," "Melrose Place" and "The Nanny" say sayonara this month. ... You mean they're still on?

10: Later this month CBS airs "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Movie." Or, as it's known to disgruntled fans of the canceled series whom the network are inexplicably teasing: Must Seymour TV.

11: David "Twin Peaks" Lynch is up for a fall assignment with the pilot "Mulholland Drive," hopefully bringing psycho chic back into prime-time vogue. Put another Log Lady on the fire.

12: On May 14 "Nash Bridges" brings back wrasslin's Stone Cold Steve Austin as a guest cop. Series producer Carlton Cuse told Entertainment Weekly magazine: "Nash (Don Johnson) and Steve kick some MAJOR ass."

CBS -- Welcome Home.

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